


some kind of love

by thesunsethour



Series: hell yes, found family [3]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-Episode: s08e12 Zugzwang, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:27:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26636575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesunsethour/pseuds/thesunsethour
Summary: There’s a vicious storm inside Spencer's head; the rolling thunder causes the constant headache in his temple ever since he’d arrived back home.  Each lightning strike in his mind sends a flash of pain behind his left eye, sharp and merciless.  It felt like the migraines never went away in the first place.  Maybe it wasn’t Maeve’s treatments that cured his headaches.  Maybe it was Maeve herself.*cm songfic, part 2
Relationships: Maeve Donovan/Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia & Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & The BAU Team
Series: hell yes, found family [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932388
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	some kind of love

**Author's Note:**

> lyrics from 'some kind of love' by the killers

_”You got the faith of a child, before the world gets in.”_

The sun must be rising, Spencer Reid mused, from his position curled up in a ball on his sofa. The blue tint that seemed to envelope his apartment was being interrupted with streams of golden light, illuminating his bookcases, floorboards, and walls.

He stood up and marched to the window, shutting his blinds tightly.

Collapsing back in a heap, he decided that it would be pointless to attempt falling asleep anymore, considering that it’s technically morning now, although it really couldn’t be more than 7 AM. Thus began the daily switch from closing his eyes and pretending to sleep for hours on end, to closing his eyes just to avoid having to look at anything for hours on end.

Everything in his apartment reminded him of Maeve. His kitchen table was oak, and Maeve had once gone on a five minute long rant about how oak was her favourite type of tree. Nearly every book in his possession was one he could trace back to a conversation with Maeve, sitting on the floor of a phone booth and giggling with her over their differing opinions of Dostoevsky.

He remembers when he bought a burner phone to keep at home, so he could speak to her risk-free in the comfort of his own space. Spencer had sat cross legged on his kitchen counter, had leaned against every doorframe, had lay upside down off the edge of his bed, all while talking to Maeve. Their conversation could last for _hours._ No topic was off limits, from books they loved to scientific theories they were interested in. From their childhoods to their present, and, with trepidation, their future.

Naivety was truly his biggest vice, Spencer decided, mushing his face further into the cushions of his leather sofa. Morgan often teased him for his childlike faith in life, but he never took much notice. So what if he believed in parallel universes and intertwined souls and happy endings? He may be a man of science, but his mother ensured that he was raised on a healthy diet of medieval love poetry and eighteenth century romanticism. Even after Hankel, Foyet, Doyle, Spencer still believed that life at its most basic can be good; can be kind.

He’s not so sure of that anymore.

_”You got the grace of the storm in the desert.”_

The world seemed to take some sadistic pleasure in hurting innocent people, that’s one thing he’s certain of. Nearly a decade working in the FBI and he still finds himself shocked sometimes at the sheer depth of human suffering he witnesses. Taking a page out of Garcia’s book, he always tried to look on the brighter side; at the lives they save, the families reunited. Even when his worldview slipped, in the midst of his addiction, his headaches, his mourning for Emily, his confusion at her return, he always tried to focus on some positives. Try as he might, though, there were no positives to find here.

There’s a vicious storm inside his head; the rolling thunder causes the constant headache in his temple ever since he’d arrived back home. Each lightning strike in his mind sends a flash of pain behind his left eye, sharp and merciless. It felt like the migraines never went away in the first place. Maybe it wasn’t Maeve’s treatments that cured his headaches. Maybe it was Maeve herself.

Her hearty giggles and strong opinions on nineteenth century literature. Her incredible depth of knowledge on genetics and her enduring strength that he envied. 

Maeve had cured him, but now Maeve was gone. Like so many before her.

Spencer knew, logically, that there was little comparison between being murdered and simply walking away, but human brains are notoriously unreliable at dealing with traumatic situations rationally. Maeve was gone, like his father, like Gideon, like JJ, like Emily.

Of course, JJ came back from the CIA, and Emily came back from the _dead,_ but Spencer couldn’t help but connect different dots together in an alarming pattern. What hurt most, however, was that Maeve didn’t want to leave at all.

She was brilliant. Extraordinarily talented in her field, hardworking and compassionate, with her whole career and life ahead of her. She was hilarious, in a wonderfully subtle way. Memories of laughing at Penrose Triangle jokes invade his mind and the lightning strikes again, almost in a warning not to remember the happy times.

Sad times were always easier to remember, because they had stronger emotions connected to them. Fear. Fear and anger. Spencer knew this, but it did him no good.

Why should he be forced to remember staring at the dry expanse of the Vegas desert, desperate to escape into the nothingness of it all. Desperate to make his brain shut off, because all it could think of was _Dad left and it’s all your fault._ Now he pictures the same desert in his mind, the desert of his childhood home, and pictures the storm rolling over it, sending sand whirring into the air, into his eyes and his mouth. There is nothing elegant or beautiful about his mourning. His grief is thirty year old sand stinging his eyes, with no real reprise in sight.

Is that a mirage in the distance? 

The desperate hallucinations of a parched man.

In his mirage, something is slipped under his door.

_”Can’t do this alone. We need you at home. There’s so much to see. We know that you’re strong.”_

Spencer’s mother always said his curiosity was his greatest virtue, his father would scowl at him and said it would get him killed. At the tender age of 4, Spencer wasn’t sure why being inquisitive about the world around him would hurt. Even today, his boundless curiosity serves as a constant form of rebellion against his father, so he forced himself up on aching bones to trudge to the door, and examine what was slipped under it, provided it was real.

As he walked closer, the item became clearer in his vision. It was an envelope, simple and brown. Deciding that it was suitably real when he bent down to sit cross legged beside it, he opened it.

Several pages of folded paper fell out, landing in his lap. It was lined, and at the top of the first page he could see blue ink spell out his name. Except it wasn’t his name, but Garcia’s name for him.

Boy Wonder.

The top of the second page read ‘Spence.’

Then it was Pretty Boy, Kiddo, and Reid.

The last page simply said Spencer, and so he read it first.

It was from Alex, and it was short and sweet. Her vocabulary was perhaps more advanced in writing than in verbal communication, but that was no surprise for a linguist. There were very few filler sentences, but rather a couple of lines on the nature of grief, followed by a quote from Seamus Heaney, one of their shared favourite poets.

Hotch and Rossi’s letters were more personal, delving into detail on their grief for their deceased spouses. Haley and Carolyn.

Spencer almost finds himself angry at that. What right does he have to even think about comparing his despair to theirs? Haley and Hotch were married for years upon years, Spencer barely had 100 days of Maeve’s voice. The two older profilers were being too generous in their mutual empathy, of that Spencer was sure.

But their words made sense, and the thunder in his mind lessened in volume ever so slightly.

Morgan and JJ’s letters followed in a similar vein, talking of a murdered father or a lost sister. Their vulnerability, the sheer courage in their honesty blows Spencer away, and it rears up tidal waves of guilt for locking himself away in his room.

Boy Wonder.

He left Garcia’s note for last, for reason’s he can’t explain. Every second sentence she changed pen colour, and at the bottom there were several star-shaped stickers, as well as a doodle of her octopus mug that Spencer always tried to steal from her to make coffee in.

No one else’s words made him cry, but Penelope’s did.

She seemed to recognise every worry he had, and softly placed a pink and sparkly band aid over it. His terrible fear of succumbing to the drugs again, his anxiety over being unable to hear a gunshot again without flinching. His despair at the future.

She didn’t sign off with her name like everyone else, but simply left with a sentence, which in her beautifully curved handwriting read:

_”We need you at home.”_

It was a plea, in a way. Not to give up, or give in. It was a reassurance. It was some kind of prayer. 

It was some kind of love.

A beautiful, hopeful, enduring kind of love. A love that sought to drag him inside from the storm back into the warmth of a family home. It was different to his love for Maeve, but no less important, or impactful.

And later on that day, when Morgan rings him about a case the team is working on, he picks up on the phone.

The storm still batters him, but it’s just that bit quieter.

**Author's Note:**

> maybe unpopular opinion but i really liked maeve and i am forever pissed that the writers killed her off for Man Pain
> 
> anyway hope ye enjoyed the Man Pain i wrote oop whoops


End file.
